Popular-vote-loser Donald Trump got his official briefing on Russia’s hacking of the election. In what we can only assume was an attempt to counteract Trump’s brilliant plan to flat-out lie about what was in this briefing, the US intelligence agencies released the declassified version of the report yesterday as well.

You should download it (direct link) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and read it, if for no other reason than to see how blatantly Trump has already lied about its contents. (If you’d like to avoid going to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence site you can download the PDF from The Minneapolis Star-Tribune here.)

The report is actually quite short; especially if you ignore the appendix about Russia’s propaganda outlet RT, which is definitely worth reading on its own though not quite as essential.

If you don’t feel like dealing with a PDF at the moment, the Washington Post has a handy guide to the important bits in the report.

Tomorrow we start in on Trump’s cabinet nominees and their ethical failings, in preparation for a week of CALLING SENATORS.

you just accused me of threatening Scildfreja AND demonstrated that you do not know what the definition of the word ‘dogwhistle’ is.

Did I?

The ‘threat’ of scapegoating is ever present in social dynamics. I didn’t ever write or imply that you personally IMed Scildfreja and told her what you would do if she transgressed the norms many posters here have used as excuses for attacks on me. It’s understood.

Why don’t you ‘splain why an in-group term cannot be used as a ‘dogwhistle’? This should be good!

@footz
I’ll deal with the stuff about me, cos that’s all I can speak to

it is odd how the discussion went from ‘Putin/Assange conspiracy claims’ to ‘many Trump voters were racists’

No it’s not, that’s how conversation works. You said that the Dems should learn from their mistakes by making class a bigger part of their platform. I stated that wasn’t necessary as class had very little to do with this election. I also pointed out an alternate route for them to go in. Namely race (and indeed gender). Nothing odd about that

I might not have been quick enough on my feet to properly address the change to a completely unrelated topic

My fault surely…

Axe could have saved us all some of this drama by linking to the polling where the ‘EXISTENCE of brown people’ was among the questions asked of voters in the recent election, or anything about ‘fascism’

No such polling exists. Of course it doesn’t. That’s not how anything works. Nobody says ‘I am a racist’, they just say racist shit. Nobody says ‘I am a fascist’, they just say fascist shit. I get that you’re being facetious (everything you’ve said has been facetious since, like, your 4 comment in this thread), but you’re really proving Scildfreja’s point about your lack of scepticism here

But Axe was being reductive in an attempt to discredit my previous comment

I was being reductive in order to better express myself. That you took it as an attack is kinda the whole problem. As the rest of us discussed, pointing out racism needn’t be an accusation. Why is it for you?

I should have resisted the urge to return hostility with hostility

And here again. Who was I being hostile to? Not rhetorical. You responded to that comment by saying I was in a bubble (hostility), but what in my post was hostile to you? I reread it and couldn’t find what set you off. I’d quite like to know what it was

my treating Axe with the same tone as Axe used with me

Once more, I see. Yes, my tone was less than polite. But why do you think I was using that tone against you? I didn’t even mention you. I mentioned Trump voters, the vast majority of whom are white. Did you vote for Trump? If not, how was my tone offesive to you? Again, not rhetorical

If it’s shitty, it’s shitty no matter who does it

I agree. And if I did what you imply I did, I’d apologize. I’m actually really good at apologies. I get plenty of practice from all the times I stick my foot in my mouth around here. I’m just not seeing the equivalence between my being reductive in my description of the actions of ~63m deplorable people and you accusing me of being bubbled and then flipping out when called on it

A final note re: Scildfreja
She is one of the best human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of being schooled by. Her being civil to those who’d attack this community, her community, is not risky behavior. It’s not something she should worry about being ostracized for. Scildfreja Unnydnes lives up to her nym with every post, and I’d want it no other way. Besides, I’m enough of a jerk to cancel out 100 of her polite dissections. Balance is maintained. Bottom line, you mess with Scildfreja, you mess with the herd

I’ve been here a little while, too. Reading, lurking, and on occasion commenting.

So perhaps both our assumptions were wrong. Maybe you’ve been here as long as I have. So what? Are we in competition for a Good Attendance Award?

Have you? I have not read comment by you prior to this article.

And were that true, you would know what the community is like and not go out of your way to be as abrasive as possible.

Since you’re wrong, there’s really no need for me to add to your fail based on a false premise. Is there?

Oh…I don’t think I am “wrong”, though.

Again, wrong on the facts, wrong on your conclusion.

In your career, you may get used to hearing that if you continue to assume facts not in evidence merely because they fit your prejudices.

How am I wrong? Eli is a regular poster. You are not.

And what are my prejudices? Be specific.

Is it curious when it’s demonstrated that people with whom I find myself in disagreement Google me in efforts to find some sort of irrelevant material to ‘discredit’ me?

It is curious that your first reaction to a throwaway joke is to call me a stalker and suggest my next move would be to dox you, while refusing to answer a direct question, yes. I neither agreed nor disagreed with you up until that point.

I will respond more fully in a bit, but I wanted to say two things. First, in general. You’ve elided a number of the statements I was making in my last post to you. Let me help. The most important part of my last post was in the beginning, my request. Stop being defensive. Let me give you an analogy.

Have you ever been in the cold? I mean real cold – the sort of cold where your eyelids freeze shut because the condensation from your eyes freezes your eyelashes together. Your muscles clench and you hold your breath in, and everything is tight. And it’s horrible. In this situation, to feel more comfortable you forcibly relax yourself. It lets blood flow more easily through you, and it lowers your adrenaline. Let the cold pass into you, and through you, and it will disappear.

This is what you need to do in this situation. Unclench, breath in a deep cold breath, and accept. I don’t mean that you need to agree with everything we’ve said, but this will go nowhere if you can’t put yourself at ease in the cold.

Second thing I wanted to say. I’m not at all afraid of anyone here turning on me, or being ostracized, or anything like that. They won’t do that, they reserve that for people who are hostile to them and theirs. I’m not like that. I don’t meet hostility with hostility. I measure out my hostility when and where I decide to. I am Scildfreja, Free-From-Anger. It’s a quality worth pursuing, in my opinion, though it has its problems.

And, for reference – I am an atheist, as are many of the people you have been arguing with. Being an atheist can get you a lot of social stigma in many places of the world, but the Internet is certainly not one of them. Frankly, the opposite is true on the Internet, generally.

That’s another discussion, though. I’ll put together a more full reply later on.

not sure? I mean, I would argue the claim that I’m a regular poster. I’ve read since the moment Amanda Marcotte linked this site on the old pandagon with David’s very first post. Weirwoodtreehugger linked a thread from of old…seems like yesterday to me, but I didn’t speak up in those days. I was here, though. I’ve seen it all.

I posted a bit more, once I started, usually when I had a bit to drink. Sometimes to bad, sometimes really bad (I had a bad stretch with one anti-palestine troll). Sometimes to despair. Usually to despair…reaching out when I had no one in my real life to reach out to.

You folks have helped me when I’ve asked for help and I am forever grateful. I’m trying to figure out how to get out of the pit I’ve found myself in, but recently I’ve figured, for the first time, remarkably, that life itself is the pit. And all I have to do is my best. I hope you all will welcome me as I try to do better.

@eli, Axe, WWTH, LindsayIrene, IP, PeeVee, everyone reading; you are all regulars of my heart, no matter how often or rarely you post <3 No minimum posting requirement for entry.

@proudfootz, I ended up digging into one little slice of your reply tonight. I've decided to post it separately, and will reply to more tomorrow. It's late and writing these sorts of things is a tad anxiety-inducing; it's not a good thing to do before bed. So, just this one thing.

"Mansplaining" and "brogressive" aren't dog whistles. They're jargon.

A dogwhistle term is a socially acceptable term used to allude to something much nastier; it veils its revulsion. A dogwhistle statement talks about “urban crime” to avoid sounding racist to people who aren’t paying attention, but it is really about reinforcing a racist belief about black people and people of colour. It’s another Motte-and-Bailey defense, if you like. Someone using a dogwhistle will claim that it’s a neutral statement, and how dare you imply racism/sexism/whatever!

“Mansplaining” wears its definition in its sleeve – it doesn’t hide what it’s saying. Notice that we aren’t saying it’s a neutral term, because it’s not. It’s a negative evaluation, describing a particular characteristic of stereotypical masculinity.

(At this point I actually wrote a few paragraphs about the phenomenon, because it’s really interesting and digs into some very fundamental motivations, but it got over-wroght. So I’ll boil it down and be brief.)

When a man’s confidence drives him to believe that he’s very well educated on some topic despite being an amateur (physics and cosmology are huge culprits here), it can mix with an unconscious social “leadership” drive when around a woman to make him very explicative and condescending. It’s usually mixed with an assumption that the woman he’s talking to doesn’t know about the topic.

That’s “mansplaining”, and it’s an insulting, condescending thing to do. It’s specifically “mansplaining” and not just condescension because it involves the social power imbalance between men and women, baked into the assumption that the woman doesn’t know, and the positive drive to “educate” her.

For your benefit: A huge difference between talking about something and mansplaining about something is how quickly and easily the speaker shifts from “teacher” to “student”. When an adult explains something to another and the other says “Yeah, I know that stuff”, the explainer stops explaining. When they disagree on a point, they listen to one another, shifting between role of teacher and student. This is called coregulated learning.

When a “mansplainer” (or just a “splainer”) explains something they refuse to make that shift, instead demanding evidence and using emotional appeals to assert social dominance. The explanation is a means of attaining that dominance, in the guise of having a “debate.” Thunderfoot, The Amazing Atheist, and Carl of Swinden all do this, if you’re familiar with them from the Atheosphere.

That’s not a dog whistle. By calling it a “dog whistle” you gut the term of its actual meaning, calling it an empty shell for a biased call-to-arms. It’s neither empty nor a call-to-arms – it’s a negative evaluation of a behaviour.

Similarly: “Brogressive” isn’t a dog whistle. It wears its definition on its sleeve. It’s another negative term, this time for a progressive man who either a) only adheres to progressive causes which directly affect his social category (single white male is the standard) or b) pays lip service to progressive causes in order to try to seduce women. Again – a meaningful term that isn’t concealing anything. It says what it means.

Now, a bit more personal.

We all have biases; anyone who thinks they’ve defeated theirs doesn’t understand what a bias is. They’re immovable consequences of our brain structure. The fact that I had to explain these terms to you should tell you something about your biases.

You have a measure of directed thinking going on with regards to this topic – I don’t and can’t know why. But it’s much like why creationists can’t really define what evolution is, not really. Directed thinking prevents them from grasping a concrete and real definition of the term (for very interesting semantic reasons, that).

Face it, look it in the eye. If you’re interested in the pursuit of truth – and if you’re an atheist I’m betting you are – that inability is indicative of something much deeper that only you can discover. Find it, root it out. It’s a barrier that you need to overcome.

‘A huge difference between talking about something and mansplaining about something is how quickly and easily the speaker shifts from “teacher” to “student”. ‘

Thank you–that is a really helpful and simple formulation. I once tried to explain this in a much less clear and more wordy way, using various kinds of interactions I’ve had with people as an example. ‘Let me tell you about this subject I’m interested in.’ ‘Cool, I hadn’t heard about that! Have you read x? It takes an interesting and unusual view of the subject.’

If you’re talking about something, the expected response would be ‘no, I haven’t–how interesting! Tell me more!’ That, to me, is a sign that the person is genuinely interested in the topic (and one reason I always carry a notebook around, to write down stuff people tell me about things I’m interested in). If you’re mansplaining, you immediately change the topic back to what you know–you’re not really interested in learning anything more about the subject.

Back in the good ol days, when straight white men had virtually no power or influence, I used to be able to publicly state my hatred of of them. At some point, that became unacceptable in polite company, and so I was forced to switch to the coded language of “mansplainer” and “brocialist.” I trust that the uninitiated will believe I’m simply complaining about specific behaviours. Those who share my bigotry, though, will hear the message I’m really intending to send.

Okay then, time to deal with this one I guess. Bit of a warning – I’m a bit sharp tongued today, apparently.

May as well start where you’ve started.

As noted among the reasons I am ‘suspect’ is that I am a public atheist, so I am quite aware of certain techniques employed among the purveyors of religion in public discourse. Thanks for explaining it so well.

Others have addressed this – you’re amongst rationalists, scientists, atheists and free-thinkers here. There are religious people here too, but we’re all very much in the “reality-based” world here (Hearts for my religious peeps – being religious doesn’t make you bad or wrong! I’m sorry I wrote that so poorly). Being an Atheist here doesn’t make you suspect. Don’t be so defensive. But that’s not what’s important about your reply.

You didn’t actually reply to my statement about the Motte-and-Bailey structure of the “grain of salt” appeal. You deflected it into “I’m an Atheist, and religious people do this, thanks for explaining it.” I mentioned this because you were doing it. This suggests that no, you aren’t actually as aware of the “certain techniques employed among the purveyors of religion in public discourse” as you claim to be. If you value truth, it is vital for you to be self-critical right now.

Next. I want to juxtapose these two statements:

I am glad to learn that you all have thoroughly aired the arguments pro and con regarding these reports, and have come to a firm and universally held conclusion and that the matter is closed.

I was not aware of all these discussions, not having read every comment on every post in this blog.

…

I am, of course, aware that people have a lifetime of experience which supplies them evidence about the world. I myself have experiences!

The latter statement: you claim to be aware that other people have lifetimes of experiences. The former statement: You claim to be unaware of the fact that we have critically examined the world around us in coming to our decisions. This suggests that you recognize that people have life experiences, but you think they have weaker faculties of reason and examination compared to yours.

Entering an unknown group with the assumption that they haven’t examined the evidence as thoroughly as you have is… well. I’ve already written about ‘splainin’. I don’t think I need to again.

Now let’s take that former statement and contrast it with this:

But Axe was being reductive in an attempt to discredit my previous comment.

Axe’s reduction was an attempt to discredit, apparently. What’s the reductive hyperbole you’re using in the former line for, then?

Hint: People use hyperbole for emphasis. It’s called exaggeration. It can discredit, sure, but it can also clarify differences between positions and demonstrate problematic outcomes. It can also ridicule, which is what Axe was doing. Apparently what you were doing with me, too.

You don’t have to read every single comment ever in order to realize that people have reasonable thoughts in their head, and it’t patently ridiculous to suggest it. Dismissive is probably the better word for that. Perhaps if you came into the conversation without the assumption that we’re beneath your level of critical analysis, you might have avoided a lot of this, and we could have had a nice discussion.

Go ahead and take that with a grain of salt, though.

Yes, it is odd how the discussion went from ‘Putin/Assange conspiracy claims’ to ‘many Trump voters were racists’. I might not have been quick enough on my feet to properly address the change to a completely unrelated topic.

I can take a straight insult, but this sort of backhanded “I wasn’t agile enough to handle your gross incompetence, I’m sorry” is deeply, deeply irritating. Want to complain about deflection via hyperbole? Don’t do this.

There was a very clear path of discussion, no bait-and-switch – none on Axe’s part at least. You asked what Axe would prefer over the 99%-1% dialog, he said he preferred the 60%-40% split, which was roughly the actual division of votes, and was best predicted by race. You, yourself, weren’t even talking about the “Putin/Assange conspiracy claims” at that point – you were talking about Occupy Wall Street and the Sanders’ campaign.

The comment is back on page 2 if you want to look at it yourself.

Axe may well be very knowledgeable regarding racism among Trump voters. Axe could have saved us all some of this drama by linking to the polling where the ‘EXISTENCE of brown people’ was among the questions asked of voters in the recent election, or anything about ‘fascism’.

Again. You entered this space. Perhaps instead of blaming Axe for not taking the initiative to educate you, you might have asked for some direction. Axe could have saved us some drama by choosing a different action, but you could’ve saved us a lot more drama in the same way.

If you feel the need to try and explain why my treating Axe with the same tone as Axe used with me is something Oogy had every right to be upset about, you are of course welcome to do so. On my part I do not ascribe to the notion that certain persons should be privileged at the expense of others by means of a ‘double standard’. If it’s shitty, it’s shitty no matter who does it. If it’s not shitty, then it’s not shitty no matter who does it.

There are a few comments from you along this line here. I’ll just use this one as the exemplar.

The reason I was okay with OogyBoggles and Axe being angry and hyperbolic is because you came in here with the assumption that we didn’t know what we were talking about (sorry, hadn’t “taken it with a grain of salt”) and refused to engage when we spoke otherwise. You showed no curiousity or desire for the conversation to be an exchange, and seemed happy to continue to believe the cause was purely economic despite being told that racial issues were also a significant factor – more significant in fact.

In short, you were being a dick from the start.

Look, @proudfootz, you’ve alluded in another comment here that you get this a lot, that you’re used to being treated “like shit by trolls.” Please consider that this may be happening to you a lot because of your behaviour, and not because other humans are garbage. I’m not saying that you’re garbage, either! You’re just human like anyone else. But if it’s happening to you a lot, well, you’re the common element of those interactions.

As I said before, now is the time to be self critical. Find what’s causing this and tear it down. It’s a painful process I’ve gone through a few times. Very self-damaging, but it will improve your ability to see the world clearly. It’ll also help you be a kinder, more compassionate person, which is always a good thing.

I suppose this notion of ‘de-legitimizing’ could very well explain the glee that comes with the speculation as to my status as a ‘911 truther’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’. Heck, throw in the fact that I’m an ‘atheist’ (nudge nudge wink wink) and that I’m a ‘man’ and there’s pretty much no reason to read my posts with all the respect one requires for one’s own posts.

I won’t embarrass you in front of your friends by asking whether you think that the posts about my YouTube videos are efforts to ‘poison the well’ with regard to… well, pretty much everything I might write, ever.

First: Being a man or an atheist docks you exactly zero points here. Two of the people who you have been confronting here are atheist men, actually (to the best of my knowledge!). Men and atheists both are cherished commentors here.

And yes, it was mentioned to discredit you. It wasn’t so much well-poisoning, though, because the evidence against 9/11 being an “inside job” is very large and convincing. I don’t think we want to drag that into the conversation, though, there’s enough going on as it is.

Short form: well-poisoning is a personal attack made before the argument. Hillary Clinton suffered from it terribly during the primaries and election, in the form of 30 years worth of slander and political attack from the Republicans against the Clintons. It’s called “poisoning the well” as an analogy – you go to the well to drink, but the water’s already poisoned when you got there. You already have a negative assessment before the discussion starts.

So, it wasn’t well-poisoning; it was mockery. Tagline of the website, actually. We tease and mock here. If you want a debate you’ve gotta bring your A game and give us something to debate.

Evidence is Bayesian.

It sounds like such individuals would not respond to a tentative suggestion with hostility merely because it went against a belief they have decided to adopt. Is that what you observed among your friends in the comments on this post?

As noted above, their hostility was warranted and due to the way you chose to make your entry, and how you reacted to initial disbelief. Had you replied with “here is my evidence showing problems with the report” or “can you explain your position so that I can understand where you’re coming from?” or something, you would’ve gotten a lot more traction. You decided to go with the “You’re all gullible” gambit. Doesn’t seem to have paid off.

In any case, you’ve made your position clear and did not feel it necessary to prop up your arguments with hyperbole, deliberate strawmanning, or even making fun of my ‘nym!

…

Yeah, okay, guess I’m gonna do this, too.

You recall when I said “don’t thank me for being nice, because I’ll suffer for it”? And how after I clarified that I wasn’t worried about them pursuing me, ostracising me, or rejecting me?

The reason why I knew I’d suffer for being nice to you is because I knew you would use my niceness as a way to insult my friends for their (deserved) passion. I would be a pathway for you to stick the knife into them, to make them feel like they were being the unreasonable one. And it’s my fault for giving you that.

This is the tax I pay for kindness, and it’s likely part of why you don’t get much of it on your travels through the internet. I always feel bad doing it, too, because it’s taking from my friends, too – it’s exposing them to more hostility, more insults that wouldn’t have been available had I just shut up. I make that decision for them without asking, and that’s a terrible thing to do to friends. I’m very fortunate that they’re willing to go along with me, at the least.

You continue to meet my expectations.

I’ll end as I began the previous statement. Stop defending yourself. Let the cold in.

‘A huge difference between talking about something and mansplaining about something is how quickly and easily the speaker shifts from “teacher” to “student”. ‘

…

If you’re mansplaining, you immediately change the topic back to what you know–you’re not really interested in learning anything more about the subject.

Coregulated learning is a very new topic without a lot of paper under it, but it’s super interesting. It discusses how peers work together to learn something, typically in an unsupervised environment. I don’t recall seeing anything about bad coregulation in the literature, either – no discussions on how misplaced social dynamics can usurp clear coreg.

Regulation in Learning, in general, is about self-awareness of the dynamics of learning – understanding ones weaknesses and strengths, attempting strategies for improving learning, etc, etc. Coregulation extends that to the social dynamics of learning as well – awareness of the social landscape, methods and strategies for overcoming difficulties in learning as a group.

🙂 the thing that makes me happiest in the world is someone saying, as a result of something I’ve said, ‘oh, wait, I’ve got an idea!’ So you’ve just made my day.

And it usually happens IRL when two people put together all the stuff they individually know, or imagine, about a topic or concept and as a result collectively develop something completely new. Can’t happen if only one wants to do all the talking/teaching….

@guest, thank you! it really is nice, I agree. Good bit of coregulation there 😉

This is exactly why I don’t sheathe my claws with trolls ever anymore. A few too many “well thank you, Viscaria, for having the decorum your friends seem to lack.” Uh, no, fuck you actually.

Proudfootz, if you think you’re going to turn us against each other, you’ve got another think coming.

@Vis, Falconer, that sorta “gosh, you’re so nice, it’s a shame you hang out with such jerks” just makes me so angry, too. I don’t think he’s doing it intentionally, though. Not that it makes a difference – makes it worse if you ask me. It’s just unconscious, unexamined, inattentive behaviour.

Ugh. Humans.

And another bravo for Scildfreja. She makes me feel dumb, and that’s a good thing. When I feel smart, I get lazy.

@Axe,

Huh? Just noticed this. So does @footz have no idea how scare apostrophes work (add to to the list of rhetorical concepts with splaining, dogwhistle, and grain of salt), or…

:3

Poor guy can’t catch a break!

The 60-40 refers to all white people and all people of color respectively regardless of votes. The popular vote came out 48-46 Clinton. Just clearing that up

Thanks! I figured it was something like that, or perhaps something to do with the popular vote while including non-voters, or something like that. Either way it was pretty clearly “Not economic anxiety”

Looks like proudfootz’ argument has turned into “I assert that this group is following group dynamics, therefore I don’t need to support anything I’ve been saying.” Definitely a rational position to take.

The reason why I knew I’d suffer for being nice to you is because I knew you would use my niceness as a way to insult my friends for their (deserved) passion. I would be a pathway for you to stick the knife into them, to make them feel like they were being the unreasonable one. And it’s my fault for giving you that.

I didn’t participate much in this discussion, but you can make me look like an unreasonable dick any time. It’s fine. 😀

Way back in the thread there was (I think?) some discussion of how opposition to Putin’s regime need not be the same thing as overall Russophobia. I thought that was interesting and important, actually, and regretted seeing that sub-theme get overwhelmed.

By the way, hello again everyone. Was busy with class until the end of December, with Ms. Pavlov’s House working mucho hours too. I see the many excellent folks here are still excellent. Thank you for being a nice group.

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.